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Thursday, 28 February 2013

Third attack on Mexican newspaper leaves one dead, two injured

After the latest attack

The newspaper El
Siglo de Torreón (Torreón Century) in the northern Mexican city of
Torreón, Coahuila, was attacked for the third time on Wednesday, February 27,
and this time a worker was killed and two others injured.

The attack occurred minutes after 1 pm on the south side of
Allende near Acuña street, riddling the facade of the newspaper’s building with
bullets and shattering glass.

Only two days earlier, on Monday, February 25, federal
agents guarding the premises of the newspaper came under attack. At the time,
newspaper officials insisted it was the federales
who were the targets, and not them. However, on February 8 five non-editorial
workers at the newspaper were kidnapped for a few hours before being released. The
newspaper refused to give any details on the incident, citing security reasons,
other than to say that the kidnapping of non-editorial staff was a “worrisome
trend”.

In the latest attack a laborer, Gerardo Tetepa Barrera, 37,
died minutes after his arrival at hospital. As well a man named Edmundo
Martínez Vacio, 43, was wounded in his left arm, and an unidentified police
officer was taken to a private hospital with a wound in his leg.

As with the previous attack, this was a drive-by shooting.
Two vehicles were involved, with the description only being that “one was white
and one was black”. A mobilization of security forces, as in the past two
attacks, came up with nothing.

In a statement released after the latest attack, the newspaper
stated that “insecurity and violence faced by this media outlet, like others in
the district, has reached the highest levels," adding the series of attacks
against El Siglo de Torreón “exhibits the inaction of the federal and local
authorities.”

This latest attack on press freedom, in which an innocent
bystander was killed – as has happened in so many cases – should help put to
rest the persistent myth that the drug war is some sort of mopping up exercise, in which the only
victims are an endless
supply of violent delinquents.

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